Region's train safety under scrutiny

NEW WINDSOR — Global Properties LLC's plans for a riverfront train yard to receive shipments of crude oil and other volatile petroleum products for storage and shipment down the river have heightened concerns about the safety of trains traveling through the Hudson Valley.

Environmental groups including Riverkeeper and Earthjustice worry about accidents polluting the Hudson with spilled oil. The trains frequently travel within feet of the river and bridges crossing it.

"If you have a derailment, the cars will end up in the water," said Chris Amato, attorney for Earthjustice. "It's a losing bet that the Hudson Valley will escape an accident."

Environmentalists and emergency workers also worry about explosions like one in Quebec last July that killed 47 people after an oil train derailed. A crash involving an oil train in December, and its ensuing fireball, forced the evacuation of Casselton, N.D.

"I know that if they expand, they'll have a lot of trains down there with oil in them," Jerry Buote of Newburgh said. "I'm not too comfortable about that."

Buote was sitting in a restaurant on the Newburgh waterfront. CSX tracks carrying the oil trains loom like the Great Wall over the restaurant and upscale shops lining the river.

"And if there's an accident, it could be a major accident," Buote said.

2 storage tanks to be converted

Oil trains regularly pass the city's waterfront, and Newsburgh's border is less than a mile from where Global plans the rail yard. Two storage tanks that can contain millions of gallons will be converted from holding distillates to volatile petroleum. And like at its Port of Albany terminal, Global plans to have boilers in New Windsor to heat oil in rail cars and storage tanks.

The rumble of a long freight train passing Jim Taylor's Town of Newburgh home overpowered a recent telephone conversation.

"There must be two trains an hour," said Taylor, CEO of Taylor Biomass Energy in Montgomery. "They're all shiny cars. Business must be good. In fairness to CSX, their work crews are out there constantly. But accidents do happen, and the more you increase the volume, you increase the likelihood of an incident."

Twice weekly visual inspections

Newburgh Mayor Judy Kennedy and City Manager James Slaughter also expressed concerns over the safety of the trains. There have been two minor incidents in the region in the past month. The engine of an empty oil train derailed Feb. 25 in the Town of Ulster. Then a few days later, 13 highly flammable oil tank cars derailed in CSX's Selkirk yard near Albany. No oil spilled on those occasions, but CSX was fined $10,000 for not notifying the state Department of Transportation within an hour.

Another CSX train hauling loaded oil tank cars derailed on a Philadelphia bridge in January without spillage.

CSX spokesman Robert Sullivan said the company supports the February agreement between the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Association of American Railroads that addresses safety and oil trains.

The train line through the Hudson Valley is visually inspected twice a week. Specialized equipment checks the stability of rail and track structure several times a year, Sullivan said.

Ulster's big concern

Ulster County's Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan has, since at least 2003, put hazardous materials in transit at the top of a list of potential hazards.

"We are currently in the process of updating the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan," said Art Snyder, Ulster's director of Emergency Services, "and once again, haz-mat in transit secured the top spot as a hazard."

A key issue for Snyder and others engaged in emergency preparedness is that localities have little or no jurisdiction over railroads, which mostly fall under the eye of the Federal Railroad Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Ulster County Executive Michael Hein has joined the region's state and federal legislators in lobbying for the replacement of older tank cars, called DOT 111's. The cars have proven fragile and subject to spillage in train accidents.

Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy lashed out at Global last week, after the company announced it would continue seeking an air-quality permit from the state to warm petroleum products at the Port of Albany. The county imposed a moratorium on the project on March 14, pending a ruling from its health department on whether it would endanger residents.

Edward Faneuil, Global's executive vice president, said in a statement that the state Department of Environmental Conservation had already determined the warming equipment "would not result in any significant adverse environmental impacts."

In a statement of his own, McCoy said: "We will not back down and we will not let Big Oil and its hordes of lawyers use hollow threats to stop us and the people from ensuring environmental justice in Albany County."

New Windsor Town Supervisor George Green has not responded to multiple requests over several weeks to discuss Global's plans and the oil trains in his community. Global has not yet filed an application for the rail yard project, New Windsor Building Inspector Jennifer Gallagher said.

During an informal Planning Board discussion last year about Global's plans, Mark Edsall, New Windsor's engineer, said there was little for the Planning Board to review. The project mostly involved demolishing buildings and installing train tracks, piping and pumps.

So Edsall and board members, including Jerry Argenio, handed it off to the town's building and fire inspectors.

"The main thing is the fire issue," Argenio said.

Hauling crude oil safely

The Federal Railroad Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Transportation, issued voluntary safety measures on Feb. 20 for railroads hauling crude oil. Association of American Railroads CEO Edward Hamberger signed the agreement on Feb. 20.

Under the agreement, railroads are encouraged to:

• Determine by July 1 the safest routes for trains hauling 20 or more tank cars loaded with crude oil;

• Adhere to a 40 mph speed limit by July 1 in "high-threat urban areas" - Yonkers and New York City - when using fragile DOT 111 tank cars;

• Begin installing by July 1 defective-bearing detectors every 40 miles on crude oil train routes;

• Produce an inventory of emergency response resources along routes for emergency responders;

• Develop and provide training on hazardous material transportation, and fund training for emergency responders through 2014; and

Be the first to comment

PAUSE is a grassroots group of individuals who have come together to promote safe, sustainable energy and fight for environmental justice. We engage the greater public to stop the fossil fuel industry’s assault on the people of Albany and our environment.